Latest news with #Kilmar
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife shares message ahead of hearing: ‘Continue fighting … God is with us'
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, in black dress, wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is embraced by friends and supporters before speaking at First Lutheran Church in Nashville before Abrego Garcia's June 13 arraignment on federal trafficking charges. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout) NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a Salvadoran native who was wrongfully deported to an El Salvador prison as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown — shared a message from him with a crowd gathered at a downtown Nashville church ahead of his arraignment Friday morning: 'Continue fighting, and I will be victorious because God is with us.' About two blocks down the street, Abrego Garcia awaited his arraignment in federal court on criminal 'alien smuggling' charges and a hearing to determine whether he will continue to be detained until trial. Speaking to a crowd of immigrant rights advocates, union leaders and clergy, Jennifer Vasquez Sura said Thursday marked exactly three months since 'the administration abducted and disappeared my husband and separated him from our family.' It also marked the first time she was able to see him — albeit through a video screen. Hundreds of miles away, their son, Kilmar Jr., was in Maryland at his kindergarten graduation, she said. 'Our family should have never been in this situation,' she said, her voice choking with emotion. 'We should be with our children. Me and Kilmar's mind is here in Tennessee, but my heart is in Maryland with my kids … My son is alone on his big day, and I'm here fighting for my husband, for his dad, to come back home.' Abrego Garcia — a 29-year-old Salvadoran native living in Maryland, union sheet metal worker and father of three — was driving home with his five-year-old son when he was pulled over in March. He was detained and mistakenly deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison under allegations of membership in the MS-13 criminal gang. His family says they are false. A court order from 2019 expressly prohibited his deportation to El Salvador, where he fears persecution. The El Salvador government returned Abrego Garcia to the United States in June to face a grand jury indictment in Tennessee for one count of 'conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain' and one count of 'unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain' between 2016 and 2025. The indictment was issued May 21 but remained sealed until June 6. The charges are tied to a traffic stop by the Tennessee Highway Patrol in November 2022, when Abrego Garcia was pulled over for speeding about 80 miles east of Nashville while driving an SUV with nine Hispanic men. No charges were filed at the time, but prosecutors now allege that the stop involved smuggling migrants within the United States. Vasquez Sura said Abrego Garcia spoke of faith and gratitude. 'To everyone who continues to support Kilmar and the fight for justice, Kilmar says, 'Thank you from the bottom of my heart. God has put us in this path together for a reason. He knows why He does it and what He does, and there's always a reason we have all come together at this moment,' Vasquez Sura said. 'Kilmar shares that he feels God's presence with him, as only God knows the darkness he has faced in these past three months,' she said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Spectator
2 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Has deporting illegals become illegal?
The circus around Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia – whose full name the New York Times likes to trot out as if citing an old-school English aristocrat – speaks volumes about the immigration battle roiling the US. Our friend Kilmar is what we fuddy-duddies insist on calling an illegal immigrant. The Salvadoran crossed clandestinely into the US in 2012. As for what he's done since, that depends on whom you ask. According to his GoFundMe page, Kilmar is a 'husband, union worker and father of a disabled five-year-old'. Left-wing media portray 'the Maryland man' – a tag akin to Axel Rudakubana's 'a Welshman' – as an industrious metalworker devoted to his family. His wife has rowed back on the temporary protective order she once requested, claiming she'd been over-cautious. Yet according to the Trump administration, Kilmar is a member of the notoriously violent street gang MS-13 who's derived his primary source of income from smuggling hundreds of illegals over the southern border for several years. Choose A or B. In 2019, Kilmar was arrested for loitering along with three other men, one a suspected MS-13 member. He was carrying marijuana, for which (of course) he wasn't charged. From his clothing, tattoos and, more persuasively, a 'past proven and reliable' confidential source who verified he was an active gang member using the moniker 'Chele', police adjudged that Kilmar was a gangbanger, for which (of course) he wasn't charged. He was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement – whose acronym, ICE, reinforces its rep as cold-hearted – which moved to deport him. Kilmar (of course) contested his removal. The immigration judge hearing Kilmar's case concurred that the defendant was indeed a gang member and deportable; the Salvadoran (of course) appealed the decision, which nevertheless was upheld. Kilmar (of course) then filed for asylum, as well as for a 'withholding of removal'. A subsequent immigration judge stayed his deportation to his home country, where his wellbeing might be endangered by local gangs. Now, you might suppose that putting yourself in the way of other famously rivalrous gangs would come with the territory when you join one yourself. Like, inter-gang violence seems a natural hazard of this line of work. But it's not only British immigration judges who are soft touches. Only mass round-ups and swift group trials could effectively address the millions of gate-crashers Kilmar (of course) remained in the US. In 2022, he was pulled over for speeding while driving eight other Hispanic men of uncertain immigration status in an SUV altered to add a third row of seats for extra passengers. The officers suspected human-trafficking; Kilmar's driving licence had expired; a run of his number plate through the database turned up a federal note on likely membership of MS-13. Yet when the patrolmen contacted the feds, ICE (of course) declined to pick him up. So Kilmar was (of course) released without charge. Even so, his claim that he was merely transporting construction workers between jobs did not, under investigation, hold up. Fast-forward to 2025 and why this otherwise obscure Salvadoran who is or is not a thug merits such a detailed lowdown. Meaning (of course) that this case has to do with Donald Trump – whose evil minions in March flew more than 230 purported criminals to a Salvadoran prison, including none other than Kilmar, whom ICE did finally pick up (no 'of course' there). The flights' timing was judicially dodgy. The planes did or didn't take off after a federal judge ruled that the flights could not proceed until the deportees were given the opportunity to challenge their removal. The administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which directed Trump to 'facilitate' Kilmar's return to the US. Because, remember, there was only one country to which he could not be deported because of that credulous 2019 decision: his own. Hence the Justice Department's acceptance that Kilmar's deportation was an 'administrative error'. During this proxy war with Trump, Democrats have pretended to hair-tear over poor Kilmar, mouldering away in a nasty foreign prison and deprived of due process. But the story I just laid out has due process, not to mention leniency or even dereliction on the part of the authorities, up the wazoo. Meanwhile, after slyly getting their jurisprudential ducks in a row, last week Trump and co finally got Kilmar flown back to the US, only to arrest him immediately for human-trafficking – with every intention of convicting the guy and then deporting him right back to El Salvador. What do we make of this farce? The American commentariat has focused on a potential showdown between Trump and the judiciary, claiming to fear a flat-out executive refusal to follow court orders but secretly rather hoping that Trump does defy the courts and thus reveals himself as an unconstitutional tyrant. I view this absurd tale through a different lens. All these trials and flights for a lone illegal alien are expensive. The amount of 'due process' the American justice system affords every single illegal makes deportation at any scale impossible. There isn't enough time and money and there aren't nearly enough judges to make any but a token gesture toward the mass deportation of illegals that Trump has promised. That amounts to a victory not just for Democrats but also for disorder. I'd assess the odds that Kilmar is a thug at about 90 per cent. But proving membership of unofficial allegiances in court is a bastard. If every individual deportation case must be adjudicated according to exacting evidentiary rules and appeal procedures, America's drastic, undemocratic demographic change will proceed inexorably. Only mass round-ups and swift group trials could effectively address the staggering ten million gate-crashers during the Biden administration alone. What are the chances of that? In New York at the weekend, ICE raids were impeded by LA-style crowds of righteously indignant protestors screaming: 'Let them go! Let them go!' The officers just doing their jobs looked beleaguered, tired, numb and pre-defeated. After all the ICE agents' thankless labours, what proportion of their detainees will still get to stay in the country in the end? I'll take another stab at 90 per cent.
Daily Mirror
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Trump says he can 'bring back' man accidentally deported to torture prison - but 'won't'
President Donald Trump has refused to make the call to El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele to discuss returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia after he was wrongly deported due to being 'an MS-13 gang member' President Donald Trump has said he "could" bring back a man he had deported to El Salvador - but he "won't". Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran, was living with his American wife in Maryland when Trump had him sent to a high-security jail in the country. Trump was pictured the Oval Office, holding up a picture of the hand of Mr Garcia, accidentally deported to a Salvadoran torture prison, and have thus far refused to bring back despite the Supreme Court telling them they had to. Trump's administration claims Kilmar is a member of the MS-13 Mexican street gang. The cartel is known for dishing out extreme violence to achieve its objectives, meaning he should not be allowed to remain in the country. The White House first confessed there had been an error in Kilmar's deportation, but then claimed the US is powerless because he's now in El Salvador. But defiant Republicans are doubling down, saying they should not have to repatriate Kilmar after the Supreme Court said they must work to bring him back to his home in the US. On Tuesday, Trump flippantly told ABC News he could give El Salvador's president a call using the Oval Office telephone and ask for him to be returned. "I could", Trump said. 'And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that. But he is not.' Trump suggested that White House lawyers were running the show, saying that it was their decision and that they didn't want to help bring him back. At one point, the President pointed to an image of Kilmar that he claimed showed him with gang tattoos on his knuckles. The image has been challenged, with critics saying it has been digitally altered, adding an MS-13 tattoo that he doesn't actually have. "You'll pick out one man, but even the man that you picked out, he said he wasn't a member of a gang, and then they looked and on his knuckles he had MS-13," Trump said. The 29-year-old, who lived in the US for roughly 14 years, during which he worked construction, got married and raised three children with disabilities, according to court records. He was removed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month despite an immigration judge's 2019 ruling that shielded him from deportation to his native El Salvador, where he likely faced persecution by local gangs. Trump administration officials said he was deported based on a 2019 accusation from Maryland police he was an MS-13 gang member. Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged with a crime, his attorneys said. The Trump administration later described the deportation as "an administrative error" but insisted he was in MS-13, an international criminal gang originally set up to protect Salvadoran immigrants from other gangs in the Los Angeles area.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Abrego Garcia's wife on domestic violence protective order: ‘No one is perfect'
(The Hill) — The wife of a Maryland man who the United States government mistakenly deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador stood in defense of her husband while acknowledging that she filed for a civil protective order four years ago. 'After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution following a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a civil protective order, in case things escalated. Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process. We were able to work through the situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling,' Jennifer Vasquez Sura said in a statement to multiple outlets on Wednesday. Rapper Azealia Banks says she regrets Trump vote Sura rebuked President Trump's administration after the U.S. government recently shared filings from 2021 that showed she was looking for a protective order, accusing her husband of punching, scratching her and ripping her shirt off. The order prevented Abrego Garcia from getting in touch, and the Salvadorian national was directed not to abuse her. 'Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect,' Sure said. 'But that is not a justification for ICE's action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from removal.' 'Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him,' she added. The Department of Homeland Security released a copy of the protected order on Wednesday. Abrego Garcia was deported to the Salvadorian high-security prison last month in what the Department of Justice (DOJ) said was an 'administrative error.' The U.S. government has contended that Abrego Garcia is a dangerous criminal, and a member of the MS-13 gang, based on the details provided by an informant in 2019. He has not been charged with a crime. Appeals court won't lift order to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's return in blistering opinion Sura, Abrego Garcia and his attorney have denied the claims that he is a member of the transnational gang designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. On Thursday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift a justice's order that the administration 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's return and slammed the DOJ in the ruling. 'The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature. While we fully respect the Executive's robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court's recent decision,' U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson said. The White House amplified the publishing of Sura's protective order on Wednesday and went after Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-M.D.), who traveled to El Salvador to visit the Maryland man currently held at CECOT prison. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it is 'appalling' that Van Hollen and Democratic lawmakers are supporting the senator's trip to El Salvador, arguing they are 'incapable of having any shred of common sense or empathy for their own constituents and our citizens.' Nobody knows this more than the woman standing to my right, Patty Morin, whose beautiful daughter, Rachel, was brutally maimed and murdered at the hands of an illegal alien in August of 2023,' Leavitt said on Wednesday. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
17-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Emergency Is Here
transcript The Emergency Is Here The emergency is here. The crisis is now. It's not six months away. It's not another Supreme Court ruling from happening. It is happening now. Maybe not to you, not yet, but to others. To real people whose names we know, whose stories we know. The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists. A prison known by its initials, CECOT. A prison built for disappearance. A prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, because it is a prison that does not intend to release its inhabitants back out into the world. It is a prison where the only way out — in the words of Salvador's justice minister — is in a coffin. [CLIP] Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited the most notorious prison in the Americas to drum up some support for the Trump administration, deporting hundreds of men there without a trial. NOEM: First of all, do not come to our country illegally. You will be removed and you will be prosecuted. [CLIP] NOEM: But know that this facility is one of the tools in our tool kit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people. [END CLIP] On Monday, President Trump said in the Oval Office, in front of the eye of the cameras, sitting next to El Salvador's president, President Bukele, that he would like to do this to U.S. citizens as well. [CLIP] TRUMP: I'd like to go a step further. I mean, I say I said it to Pam, I don't what the laws are. We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals. [END CLIP] Why do we need El Salvador's prisons? We have prisons here. But for the Trump administration, El Salvador's prisons are the answer to the problem of American law. The Trump administration holds a view that anyone they send to El Salvador is beyond the reach of American law. They've been disappeared not just from our country, but from our system and from any protection or process that our system affords. [CLIP] TRUMP: They're great facilities. Very strong facilities. And they don't play games. [END CLIP] In our prisons, prisoners can be reached by our lawyers, by our courts, by our mercy. In El Salvador, they cannot. Let me tell you one of their names, one of their stories, as best we know it. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is from El Salvador. His mother, Cecilia, ran a pupuseria in San Salvador. A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the business, demanding monthly and then weekly payments. If the family didn't pay, Barrio 18 threatened to murder Kilmar's brother Cesar or rape their sisters. Eventually, Barrio 18 demanded Cesar join their gang, at which point, the family sent Cesar to America. Then Barrio demanded the same of Kilmar. And Kilmar, at age 16, was sent to America too. This was around 2011. This is what we mean when we say he entered illegally. A 16-year-old, fleeing the only home he's ever known. Afraid for his life. Abrego Garcia's life here just seems to have been a life. Not an easy one. He lived in Maryland. He worked in construction. He met a woman — her name is Jennifer — a U.S. citizen. She had two children from a past relationship. One has epilepsy, the other autism. In 2019, they had a child together. That child is deaf in one ear and also has autism. Jennifer was pregnant in 2019 on the day Abrego Garcia dropped one kid off at school, dropped the other off with a babysitter, and drove to Home Depot to try to find construction work. He was arrested for loitering outside Home Depot. Asked if he was a gang member, he said no. And he was put into ICE detention. The story gets stranger from here. About four hours after he was picked up — and that appears to be the first contact he's ever had with local police — a detective produces an allegation, citing a confidential informant that Abrego Garcia is actually a gang member. Abrego Garcia has no criminal record. Not one here. Not one in El Salvador. He was accused, strangely, of being part of a gang that operates in New York, a state that he has never lived in. Whoever produced the allegation, they were never cross-examined. And when Abrego, Garcia's attorney tried to get more information, he was told that the detective behind the accusation had been suspended, and the officers in the gang unit would not speak to him. Abrego Garcia's partner Jennifer said she was 'shocked when the government said he should stay detained because Kilmar is an MS-13 gang member. Kilmar is not and has never been a gang member. I'm certain of that.' In June of 2019, while Abrego Garcia was still detained, he and Jennifer got married, exchanging rings through an officer separated by a pane of glass. Later that year, a judge ruled that Abrego Garcia could not be deported back to Salvador because he might be murdered by Barrio 18 — that his fear was credible. Abrego Garcia was then set free. Each year since then, he has checked in with immigration authorities. He's been employed as a sheet metal apprentice. He's a member of the local union. He was studying for a vocational license at the University of Maryland. There is no evidence anywhere, offered by anyone that has suggested Abrego Garcia poses a threat to anyone in this country. But on March 12, Abrego Garcia was pulled over while driving, his 5-year-old in the back seat. He was told his immigration status had changed. On March 15, in defiance of the 2019 court ruling, Abrego Garcia was flown to El Salvador and imprisoned at CECOT as a terrorist. It was a mistake. [CLIPS] The Trump administration is now acknowledging they wrongly deported an immigrant to that notorious prison in El Salvador, calling it an administrative error, an administrative error, a clerical error. It was an administrative error. Mistakenly deporting a Maryland father. This so-called administration error has destroyed my family's happiness. My children's innocence. [END CLIPS] I want to read to you from the editorial of The National Review, probably the country's leading conservative magazine. Here is the first sentence: 'The court fight over Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a most unusual one, in that no one denies that the government violated the law in deporting him.' No one denies. [CLIP] TRUMP: If the Supreme Court said, bring somebody back, I would do that. I respect the Supreme Court. [END CLIP] This case has made its way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ordered that the administration, ''facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.' I feel I don't have the proper words to describe this next part. How grotesque it is. How dangerous it is. The Trump administration has no argument that they did not deport Abrego Garcia unlawfully. What they deny is that they have the authority to bring him back. [CLIP] MILLER: Because he is a citizen of El Salvador. That is the president of El Salvador. Your question is about per the court can only be directed to him. [CLIP] BUKELE: How can I return him to the United States? Like I smuggle him into the United States? Or what do I do? Of course I'm not going to do it. It's like — I mean, the question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist to the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States. [END CLIP] That Oval Office meeting between Trump and Bukele was a moment when the mask fully slipped off. If nothing else, if nothing else, Trump could slap those tariffs he is so fond of on El Salvador. But we are not angry at Bukele here. We, the government of America, are paying Bukele to imprison Abrego Garcia and others. Bukele is not doing this against Donald Trump's wishes. He is Donald Trump's subcontractor. I thought Jon Stewart pinpointed part of its horror well. [CLIP] STEWART: Well, they're [expletive] enjoying this. Each of them declaring that there was nothing they could do for Abrego Garcia. No way to allow him his day in court. No way to allow the American legal system to do its job and assess whether he is a danger. No way to follow the clear order of the Supreme Court. And from their perspective, maybe they're right. Because here's a scary thing that I think sits at least partially beneath their calculus: Politically, they cannot let Abrego Garcia out, nor any of the other people they sent to CECOT without due process. Because what if he was released? What if he returned to the United States? What if he could tell his own story? What if, as seems quite likely, he's been brutalized and tortured by Trump's Salvadoran henchmen? Well, he can't be allowed to tell the American people that. To the Trump administration. Abrego Garcia is not a mistake. He's a liability. And he's a test. A test of their power to do this to anyone. A test of whether the loophole they believe they have found, a loophole where if they can just get you on a plane, then they can hustle you beyond our laws and leave you in the grips of the kind of gulags they wish that they had here. [CLIP] REPORTER: Does that include, potentially, U.S. citizens, fully naturalized Americans? [END CLIP] They're not ashamed of this. They're not denying their desire to do it to more people. [CLIP] TRUMP: Yeah, that includes them. Why? Do you think there's a special category of person? They're as bad as anybody that comes in. We have bad ones too. And I'm all for it. Because we can do things with the president for less money and have great security. [END CLIP] We are not even 100 days into this administration, and we are already faced with this level of horror. I can feel the desire to look away from it, even in me. What all this demands is too inconvenient, too disruptive. But Trump has said it all plainly and publicly. He intends to send those he hates to foreign prisons beyond the reach of U.S. law. He does not care — he will not even seek to discover — if those he is sending into these foreign hells are guilty of what he claims. Because this is not about their guilt, it is about his power. This is how dictatorships work. Trump has always been clear about who he is and the kind of power he wants. And now he's using that power. And everyone around him is defending his right to wield that power. [CLIP] RUBIO: The foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the President of the United States, not by a court. And no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. It's that simple. End of story. [END CLIP] [CLIP] MILLER: The Supreme Court said exactly what Marco said — that no court has the authority to compel the foreign policy of the United States. [END CLIP] [CLIP] BONDI: That's up to Salvador. If they want to return him. That's not up to us. [CLIP] NOEM: Mr. President, you wanted people to know that there was consequences if you break our laws and harm our people and endanger families. And this is a clear consequence for the worst of the worst — that we have somewhere to put them. [END CLIP] If President Donald Trump decides that you are to rot in a foreign prison, then that is his right. And you? You have no rights. And if he is capable of that, if he wants that, then what else is he capable of? What else does he want? And if the people who serve him are willing to give him that, to defend his right to do that, what else will they give him? What else will they defend? This is the emergency. Like it or not, it's here. This is an edited transcript of an episode of 'The Ezra Klein Show.' You can listen to the conversation by following or subscribing to the show on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. The emergency is here. The crisis is now. It is not six months away. It is not another Supreme Court ruling away from happening. It's happening now. Perhaps not to you, not yet. But to others. Real people. We know their names. We know their stories. The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists. A prison known by its initials — CECOT. A prison built for disappearance. A prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, because it is a prison that does not intend to release its inhabitants back out into the world. It is a prison where the only way out, in the words of El Salvador's so-called justice minister, is a coffin. On Monday, President Trump said, in the Oval Office, in front of the cameras, sitting next to President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, that he would like to do this to U.S. citizens, as well. Archived clip of Donald Trump: If it's a homegrown criminal, I have no problem. Now, we're studying the laws right now. Pam is studying. If we can do that, that's good. And I'm talking about violent people. I'm talking about really bad people. Really bad people. Every bit as bad as the ones coming in. He told Bukele that he would need to build five more of these prisons because America has so many people Trump wants to send to them. Archived clip of Donald Trump: Why? Do you think there's a special category of person? They're as bad as anybody that comes in. We have bad ones, too. And I'm all for it. Because we can do things with the president for less money and have great security. And we have a huge prison population. We have a huge number of prisons. And then we have the private prisons, and some are operated well, I guess, and some aren't. Why do we need El Salvador's prisons? We have prisons here. But for the Trump administration, El Salvador's prisons are the answer to the problem of American law. The Trump administration holds the view that anyone they send to El Salvador is beyond the reach of American law — they have been disappeared not only from our country but from our system — and from any protection or process that system affords. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
